Shigemitsu Award Recipients

2018Midori - Midori's music and personal grace have brought Japan, America, and the
world closer together. Midori began touching audiences with her debut at
the New York Philharmonic at age 11. She has since performed throughout
the world for more than thirty years. Extending her generosity and art
to children, Midori has her own foundation supporting music education in
America and Japan: Midori and Friends, and established MUSIC SHARING in
Japan, which brings global musicians together to share classical music
with young people who may not have the opportunity otherwise. Midori is a
UN Messenger of Peace and received the Crystal Award at the World
Economic Forum in Davos. Midori has performed with dozens of the world's
finest orchestras and produced nearly twenty acclaimed albums. She has
held the Jascha Heifetz Chair as a Distinguished Professor of Violin at
the University of Southern California since 2004. In 2018, Midori will
join the eminent faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music.

2015Kim Phuc -Ms. Phan Thi Kim Phuc is a Vietnamese-Canadian peace activist and founder of the Kim Phuc Foundation, who has dedicated her life to aiding refugees and worldwide victims of war, especially young children. She was introduced in international news media on June 8, 1972, by a photograph of her as a nine-year-old child running naked and terrified from her burning home in the village of Tran Bang, South Vietnam, following a napalm bombing attack. She had been so severely burned that it took numerous operations over many years to restore her to health. The famous photograph, taken by AP photographer Nick Ut, appeared on the front page of the NY Times, won a Pulitzer Prize, and played an important role in bringing the Vietnam War to an end. As an adult, Phuc converted to Christianity, studied briefly in Cuba, married and in 1992 sought political asylum in Canada. In 1997, she established the first Kim Phúc Foundation in the U.S., with the aim of providing medical and psychological assistance to child victims of war. Later, other foundations were set up, with the same name, under an umbrella organization:Kim Phúc Foundation International. She has received many awards, honorary degrees and other commendations in Canada, and now speaks regularly at global peace events advocating aid for children victimized by warfare.

2014Shigeru Ban -World renowned Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban first won international attention for his innovative work with cardboard tubes as a structural element. He is also widely known for his humanitarian work of designing and constructing fast, efficient shelter for victims of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami. Since 1995, Ban and his team have contributed shelters and other relief materials to post-disaster victims in Japan, Africa, Turkey, China, Italy, Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. Born in Tokyo, Shigeru Ban studied architecture at Tokyo University of Arts, and later at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York. He currently maintains active architectural offices in Tokyo and Paris, and works on major international commissions. In 2014, Shigeru Ban was named the 37th recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious award in modern architecture. The Pritzker Jury cited Ban for his innovative use of material and his dedication to humanitarian efforts around the world, calling him "a committed teacher who is not only a role model for younger generation, but also an inspiration."

2012Professor Amartya Sen -Renowned Indian economist and philosopher, born in Santiniketan near Calcutta, who, since 1972, has taught and worked in the United States and the United Kingdom as well as in India. In 1998, Professor Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his many contributions to welfare economics, social-choice theory, economic and social justice, and indices for measuring the well-being of citizens of developing countries. Other major international awards includeBharat Ratna (India); Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur (France); the National Humanities Medal (USA); Ordem do Merito Cientifico (Brazil); Honorary Companion of Honour (UK); the Aztec Eagle (Mexico); the Edinburgh Medal (UK); the George Marshall Award (USA); the Eisenhower Medal (USA);and the inaugural Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize of the Royal Academy of the UK. In 1998, Professor Sen was appointed Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, becoming the first Asian head of an Oxbridge college. In 2004, he became the Thomas W. Lamont Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows and also served for a decade as Chancellor of Nalanda University in India.

2011Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara - Throughout most of his 65-year medical career Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara was known as Japan’s most distinguished doctor and writer on medical subjects. Since 1941, he was active as a physician at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, an institute he served for many years as Chairman later in his career. He also founded and headed St. Luke’s College of Nursing. Thanks to his pioneering spirit and administrative skill, Dr. Hinohara turned these institutions into Japan’s top medical facility and nursing school. Dr. Hinohara received his first medical degree from Kyoto Imperial University’s College of Medicine in 1937, and later studied briefly at Duke University in the U.S. He was responsible for many innovations in Japanese medical practice, including universal annual medical checkups called “human drydock” and other forms of preventive medicine that helped make Japanese society the world leader in longevity. Beginning in the 1950s, Dr. Hinohara fostered many medical exchanges between Japan and American, European and Asian medical establishments. He also found time to author more than 150 books in Japanese and a play for children. Dr. Hinohara passed away in July 2017 at the age of 105.

2010Seiji Ozawa - Japan’s most distinguished classical musician, Seiji Ozawa has conducted many of the world’s greatest orchestras. He is perhaps best known for his 29-year tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1973 to 2002. He has also served as music director or principal conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the NHK Symphony, and the Vienna State Opera. In addition to these positions, he founded the New Japan Philharmonic in 1972 and the Saito Kinen Orchestra (Saito Memorial Orchestra) in 1984; the latter project was undertaken as an act of homage to Hideo Saito, his mentor at Toho Gakuen conservatory. In 1992, Ozawa launched the Matsumoto Festival, which quickly became a highlight of Japanese musical life. In 1994, the Boston Symphony Orchestra honored him with the creation of Seiji Ozawa Hall, one of the principal venues of the BSO’s summer festival at Tanglewood. Mr. Ozawa has received many top international music awards and in2001, he was recognized by the Japanese government as a Person of Cultural Merit. In October 2008, Ozawa was honored with Japan's Order of Culture, and received this award from the Emperor at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. His recordings have received several Grammy Awards, and Ozawa is also a recipient of the 34th Suntory Music Award, the title ofChevalier de Légion d'Honneur of the government of France; in 2015 he was celebrated at the White House as a Kennedy Center honoree.

2009Peter Grilli -Raised in Japan as a young child, Peter Grilli was immersed in Japanese culture since childhood, eventually leading to hisfocus on Japanese studies as an adult and a professional career in Japan-U.S. cultural exchanges. He received his BA and MA degrees in East Asian studies at Harvard University, and also studied at Waseda University and Tokyo University. He worked as an editor of books on Japan at Weatherhill in Tokyo and New York. From 1975 to 1986, he was Director of Education, Film and Performing Arts at the Japan Society of New York, and was responsible for major presentations of Kabuki theater at the Metropolitan Opera House, of the Bunraku puppet theater, and other productions of traditional and contemporary Japanese performance. He later headed the Japan Project at PBS and the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University. He served as President of the Japan Society of Boston from 2000 to 2013, and continues to remain active as its President Emeritus, responsible for the Society’s Shigemitsu Award program. Mr. Grilli is also known for his documentary films on Japan, including SHINTO: Nature Gods and Man in Japan; Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden; Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies; Akira Kurosawa; and Paper Lanterns.

2008Dr. Kenneth Butler -A
longtime teacher of Japanese language, the late Kenneth Butler was the
founder of the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies.
Born in Oregon in 1930, Butler received his BA in Chinese from the
University of Chicago and his MA and PhD in Japanese studies from
Harvard University; he later studied at Tokyo University and taught
Japanese at Yale University. Dr. Butler established the
Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in 1967 to provide
high level Japanese-language training at the advanced level for
outstanding students from major American universities. Over more than
five decades, more than 1,000 students have completed the intensive
language program at the Inter-University Center, and many of them occupy
positions of leadership in academic studies of Japan as well as in
business, public service and diplomacy, journalism, cultural activities,
and other professional disciplines. Dr. Butler passed away in Tokyo in
2009.

2007Professor Donald Keene - Professor Donald Keene is one of America’s most distinguished scholars of Japanese literature and culture. Born in New York, Professor Keene began his study of Japanese language and literature at Columbia University. Most of his professional academic career was spent at Columbia, and the university honored him with the creation of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture in 1985. He is known as a leading translator of Japanese classical and modern literature, and has written more than 50 books in English on subjects relating to Japanese culture; an even greater number of his books have appeared in Japanese. His books include a four-volume history of Japanese literature; several anthologies of classical and modern literature; translations of the works of Chikamatsu, Zeami, Osamu Dazai, Yukio Mishima, and many other Japanese writers; biographies of the Emperor Meiji and Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa; and several personal memoirs. After nearly six decades on the faculty of Columbia University, Professor Keene assumed Japanese citizenship in 2011 and moved to Tokyo, where he continues his research, writing and translation.